Limited Government and Free Market Views in Delaware

The DSSA has found a lawyer to file suit against gun bans

If the three remaining Delaware public housing authorities that prohibit their tenants from owning firearms do not voluntarily withdraw their gun bans, the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, the state NRA affiliate, has found an attorney to file suit.

The DSSA will recommend the unnamed law firm as local counsel to the NRA, should a suit become necessary, according to a DSSA press release.

The Newark Housing Authority announced Wednesday their residents can now possess firearms. However, the Delaware State Housing Authority, the Wilmington Housing Authority and the Dover Housing Authority still have active firearms prohibitions.

Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association

P.O. Box 1786

Wilmington, Delaware 19899

Press Statement

By

John J. Thompson, President

For Immediate Release: 302-764-6899 February 4, 2010

The Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association is pleased to announce that it has identified an attorney and a law firm with a regional practice which encompasses the State of Delaware as the person whom it will recommend to the National Rifle Association of America to serve as local counsel should litigation be required to restore the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms to law-abiding citizens of Delaware residing within the properties owned and/or operated by the Delaware State Housing Authority, Wilmington Housing Authority, Newark Housing Authority and Dover Housing Authority, all of which I am not currently at liberty to divulge the identity of either the attorney or the firm with which that attorney is affiliated, I am able to say that both the attorney and the firm are well known and well respected in Delaware and throughout the region.

Both the recommended attorney and the firm are well established and highly successful litigators who are ready, willing and able to successfully litigate a class action civil rights action on behalf of thousands of public housing residents who are qualified to own firearms for self protection and who are being deprived of their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms and their God-given right to defend themselves, their homes and their families by these four governmental entities. We envision such an action, should it become necessary, being patterned after NRA’s successful litigation in California where the public housing gun ban in San Francisco resulted in that ban being withdrawn and significant attorneys fees being assessed against the offending housing authority without the necessity of a trial.

Obviously, our recommendation to the NRA will simply that- a recommendation. It will be up to the NRA to ultimately decide which lawyers and which law firms it will choose should litigation become necessary. It is our hope that litigation will not be necessary. However, let there be no mistake: the members of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association will not sit idly by while taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are being used by governmental entities to systematically violate the rights of law-abiding Delawareans.